Kapitalförsäkring - Är skattelagstiftningen rätt i tiden?

Sammanfattning: Endowment insurance is today a standard taxed form of savings. Assets held on an endowment insurance issued by a Swedish life insurance company are owned by and taxed by the insurance company. The policyholder, who can be either a natural or a legal person, is charged on an ongoing basis for the assets in the insurance by taxing a standard income with yield tax. Another standard-taxed form of savings in addition to endowment insurance is savings in investment savings accounts, which are also taxed by taking up a standard income from the individual. The big difference between these two forms of savings is that the latter is a pure saving without insurance elements. By insurance element is meant here an insurance risk that must always be present in an endowment insurance. The work shows that this insurance risk in an endowment insurance can be almost non-existent in comparison with the investment risk when saving in financial instruments. Savings in endowment insurance can therefore in this perspective be compared with savings in investment savings accounts. There is therefore an interest in studying how these two standard taxed forms of savings are regulated from a tax law point of view, including which different types of assets can be included in each form of savings and how assets can be transferred to these savings forms. Some endowment insurances are designed so that the policyholder himself can, within certain limits, choose which financial instruments can be placed in the insurance. This type of insurance does not have explicit rules or general guidelines for the types of assets that can be invested in them. Judgements from the Supreme Administrative Court regarding assets on endowment insurances show that endowment insurances in the cases in question has not been rejected as insurance due to that the insurance capital has been invested in certain types of assets, but rather due to too low insurance element or to avoid taxation. Investment savings accounts, on the other hand, have a statutory restriction on which assets can be placed in the account. These are characterized by other things, the fact that they are traded on a regulated market. The standard taxation is based on the value of the insurance / investment savings account being read during the tax year. However, there is no limit to the types of assets that can be included in an endowment insurance where the policyholder bears the financial risk. If, for example, unlisted shares are invested in an endowment insurance, the asset valuation is thus made more difficult, which can result in too low respectively too high taxation for the taxpayer. This may be considered problematic and especially given that the legislator's objective was to create a neutrality between the two standard taxed forms of savings when introducing the rules for investment savings accounts. Standard taxation is a system that applies in addition to the ordinary system for capital gains taxation. If it is to be possible to transfer assets between these systems, it is essential that there are safeguard provisions against undesirable tax consequences in the case of such transfers. The rules on investment savings accounts are designed so that capital gains taxation takes place when assets are transferred to an investment savings account. There is no corresponding provision for the transfer of assets to an endowment insurance. In the absence of regulations, the legal situation whether capital gains taxation is to be done when transferring investments into an endowment insurance must be said to be unclear. From a fiscal perspective, it may be considered problematic whether assets with deferred tax liabilities can be invested in endowment insurance without tax consequences, with the result that the policyholder - after the insurance company has completed a sale - can dispose the capital gain tax-free. With these problems and ambiguities in mind, I believe that legislative actions are necessary. By either limiting the types of assets that can be stored on an endowment insurance or by regulating which assets are to be covered by the standard taxation, greater neutrality between the standard taxed forms of savings should be achieved than is the case today. Furthermore, I consider it necessary to introduce a more detailed regulation on how a transfer of assets for investment in an own endowment insurance is to be treated for tax purposes.